Real Vim ninjas count every keystroke - do you?

Pick a challenge, fire up Vim, and show us what you got.

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$ gem install vimgolf
$ vimgolf setup
$ vimgolf put [challenge ID]

Played Challenges

Todo list specification - 305 entries

The every item on the todo list must be done today. Modify the list to reflect that.

  • Best score: 37
  • Best player score: 37
  • Number of attempts: 5
Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 355 entries

Originally asked as question on reddit by kpthunder: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/9fvsro/what_is_the_most_efficient_way_to_go_about/

  • Best score: 30
  • Best player score: 33
  • Number of attempts: 3
Do you demand a shrubbery? - 1035 entries

Use :redir and crush the emacsgolfers.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 30
  • Number of attempts: 2
Array propagate - 263 entries

Complete the array with the keys as part of the value

  • Best score: 23
  • Best player score: 28
  • Number of attempts: 2
Make HTML List - 917 entries

Turn the comma separated list into an unordered html list.

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 47
  • Number of attempts: 2
Test everything! - 112 entries

... and build the desired input data structure. Transform a list of values into a non-trivial format.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 24
  • Number of attempts: 12
Numbering a List - 1756 entries

Pretty simple, number the list.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 23
  • Number of attempts: 3
Whitespace, empty lines and tabs - 2678 entries

Convert tabs to spaces, strip empty lines and trailing whitespace.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 23
  • Number of attempts: 7
Triangular Numbers - 63 entries

Generate the first 50 triangular numbers.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 22
  • Number of attempts: 2
Simple, Practical, and Common - 28353 entries

Simple things we do all the time should be able to be done with very few keystrokes, but sometimes I find something I need to do makes me go, "There MUST be a better way." This challenge is just a simple movement and entering text at a certain place.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 22
  • Number of attempts: 18
attr_aligner - 3159 entries

Two attr keywords. Two separate indentations. Align the colons.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 21
  • Number of attempts: 11
Adam's challenge - 852 entries

Change both normal to bold and 4 by 2. Adam Wathan challenge this on twitter . He did it in 11 keystrokes on Sublime.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 19
  • Number of attempts: 2
Bad Copy Syntax - 1380 entries

Copy should be from right to left, but sometimes you type it wrong.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Number of attempts: 9
Scrambled numbers - 753 entries

Four is NOT 1. One is 1.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Number of attempts: 9
Every other line - 2328 entries

AaAaAaA

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 17
  • Number of attempts: 3
Python Hello World! Reformatting - 846 entries

A novice Python using prints Hello World! and a pro shows him different way. Using vim to get into pro style from novice, win the challenge.

  • Best score: 39
  • Best player score: 41
  • Number of attempts: 4
Missing Library and a Typo - 768 entries

I forgot to add a c library, please add it for me. Also I'm bad at typing so fix my typo too.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 17
  • Number of attempts: 4
Quote modules - 273 entries

Complete golang import statement.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 25
  • Number of attempts: 4
From argument to object - 1184 entries

This task typifies those programmers endure while coding. This C-family pseudocode needs a function argument to be repurposed as an object call. Simply search and replace? Repeat a pattern of edits?

  • Best score: 17
  • Best player score: 17
  • Number of attempts: 3
Array transposition - 1813 entries

Transpose two arrays into one.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 17
  • Number of attempts: 11
Swap values inside brackets - 2001 entries

Easy challenge.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 8
Harder than "abcd > a b c d" - 64 entries

Not as easy as the last challenge. This time, just one space between a and b, up to 25 spaces between y and z. (Removed some lines; diff was too long.)

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 22
  • Number of attempts: 1
Split line with dots - 1953 entries

This line is too long, split it.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 6
Assign numbers to fields - 85 entries

You are given a list of space-separated strings. Add an increasing numeric prefix to each one.

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Number of attempts: 2
Team names - 1591 entries

The team names are misspelled.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 5
Neither Fizz nor Buzz - 196 entries

Not your regular increment macro! The gaps are tricky.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 2
Paragraph breaks - 424 entries

Swap the blank lines and the aaa lines.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 2
Swap values - 3967 entries

Well, swap the values...

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 7
Generate a list of numbers - 255 entries

Please generate list of numbers from 1 to 20.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 2
camel riding - 720 entries

add a prefix on some camelCase variables

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 4
Make it more readable - 1785 entries

Insert blank lines to make it more organized and readable

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 4
Com(m)a Trouble - 2457 entries

Someone was real stupid when placing his commas. Can you fix it?

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 3
Space out the alphabet - 1436 entries

Put 3 spaces between adjacent letters.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 11
A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 ! - 9917 entries

A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014 !

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 3
Vertical Limit - 2189 entries

transform a succession of one word lines to a an array of strings

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 26
  • Number of attempts: 5
Switch function arguments - 1866 entries

How to switch two arguments of a function.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 7
Search and Replace 0 - 4350 entries

Replace every instance of 'aaa' with 'xaaax'.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 3
Flip the bit - 86 entries

Change the specific 0 to a 1.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 10
  • Number of attempts: 2
Hole-in-one - 958 entries

Lets take this golf thing literally.. Drive off the tee into the hole, and of course you don't strike the ball completely clean.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 19
  • Number of attempts: 3
One to Ten - 1566 entries

Generate the sequence of numbers from 1 to 10, one number per line. Inspired by this Reddit thread: https://redd.it/ak4it2

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 1
Swap assigned value - 505 entries

Simple problem but looking for interesting solutions.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Number of attempts: 2
Just the middle - 10000 entries

Delete the instructions at the top and bottom.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Number of attempts: 5
The name of the game - 594 entries

End up with the name of the game.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 2
Increment, increment, increment.... - 498 entries

Vim likes macros

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 1
A simple change - 366 entries

Just change the numbers in the most efficient way ...

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 5
Add string initializers to an enum - 541 entries

Change Typescript enum so that it has string initializers.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 24
  • Number of attempts: 4
Remove noise from HTTP log - 622 entries

This piece of log (from the year 2000) contains some irrelevant data. We only want to see the HTTP method and resource.

  • Best score: 15
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 5
Number Sort - 261 entries

sort the list of newline-separated numbers incrementally. Numbers are in the range 1 to 1000, with 500 missing

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Number of attempts: 1
prepend * to every non-blank line - 270 entries

Prepend an asterisk to every non-blank line in the input file.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 5
Free hyphen! - 117 entries

Just like "Inner hyphens", but I'm giving you a free hyphen to play with. Will your solution be any different?

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 1
Letter case trickery - 1451 entries

This file is in a downright esoteric format, consisting of hexadecimal numbers, non-hexadecimal keywords, and "Z" indicating end-of-line. Make the hexadecimal numbers lowercase.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Number of attempts: 8
comment and uncomment code inline - 902 entries

It's very useful to be able to comment out a block of code in a quick edit. And likewise to uncomment the code. This operation often involves multi-line stanzas and even large blocks. With just line-wise navigation and insert mode this would cost you about 4 keystrokes per line. Master this hole of VimGolf and you'll quickly drop your key count in day to day Vim as well.

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Number of attempts: 3
V to the i - 4223 entries

Input is 99 V's. Output is 100 i's.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Number of attempts: 5
comments galore - 913 entries

Basic comment reformatting

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Number of attempts: 4
From A to B - 520 entries

Mirror and change this text block

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 16
  • Number of attempts: 5
Mute the second method of this script - 418 entries

prepend a # infront of every line of the second method

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Number of attempts: 1
Refactor typescript arrow function type - 158 entries

Make arrow function type less verbose and easier to read

  • Best score: 20
  • Best player score: 28
  • Number of attempts: 2
multiple cursor alternative - 1256 entries

from: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/6w5pfa/crosspost_from_remacs_how_would_you_do_this_in_vim/

  • Best score: 19
  • Best player score: 19
  • Number of attempts: 5
Mirror Symmetry - 727 entries

Add backslashes.

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 7
  • Number of attempts: 6
One number per line - 15250 entries

Just give me the numbers.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 6
Context Insensitive completion 1 - 397 entries

Finish writing this simple Python HTTP server.

  • Best score: 18
  • Best player score: 18
  • Number of attempts: 3
Context insensitive completion 0 - 447 entries

Buried in the lines you're not supposed to add is the line "Add this line!" Add that line to the top of the file.

  • Best score: 6
  • Best player score: 8
  • Number of attempts: 2
For all cases. - 106 entries

In this case... change it! :) Watch the line.

  • Best score: 8
  • Best player score: 8
  • Number of attempts: 1
Start coding format - 123 entries

I used to start coding with following format: int main(){ -(cursor here) }

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 24
  • Number of attempts: 6
I forgot quotes - 13492 entries

Oops.

  • Best score: 10
  • Best player score: 10
  • Number of attempts: 8
Logging with key - 276 entries

Sometimes it is better to log with meaningful key

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Number of attempts: 8
remove lines containing the word "reader" - 2509 entries

easy stuff

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 10
  • Number of attempts: 1
A Simple One - 852 entries

Here is a very simple one - just to illustrate/introduce a vim feature that some people seem to miss...

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Number of attempts: 1
Condensed Cases - 718 entries

Apple's new programming language, Swift, allows two style of case statements: 1) one Enum case on each line, or 2) multiple Enum cases on a single line. Convert the following from the first case (no pun intended) to the second type.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 8
Words in parens - 11695 entries

We should all ace this, right?

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 7
switch variable - 4513 entries

how fast can you switch two variable ?

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 3
Box it - 5174 entries

Create a box around a line.

  • Best score: 21
  • Best player score: 21
  • Number of attempts: 10
Paragraph sort - 336 entries

My large herbivorous mammals, Vim commands, and POSIX utilities need to be sorted separately.

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 5
Don't know what this is - 1822 entries

Replace contents of brackets with matching number of spaces. Don't ask what the format's supposed to be.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 3
Extract argument from function - 2093 entries

The aim is to see if you can do some refactoring very fast.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 3
Happy TvvO - 364 entries

Don’t forget the past, learn from it. Happy New Year.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 2
Replace Parameter with Explicit Methods - 61 entries

Implementing the methods of a Java Interface

  • Best score: 33
  • Best player score: 38
  • Number of attempts: 5
Fiddle percentages into real numbers - 750 entries

Get rid of the '%' symbols and shift the decimal place. This is the easier version - all the columns line up.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 2
Collect List - 3744 entries

Convert to comma separated list.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 12
  • Number of attempts: 5
Simple text editing with Vim - 10833 entries

Make the pairs of lines match up by making each second line same as first

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 5
Ruby 1.9 hashes - 1095 entries

Rubyists talk about being cutting edge but how many are using 1.9 in production? Time to convert those verbose 1.8 hashes in to symbolic, succinct 1.9 beauties!

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 9
Remember VimGolf Rules ! - 206 entries

Rules, ... and don't forget !

  • Best score: 7
  • Best player score: 8
  • Number of attempts: 2
Count both ways - 903 entries

Right AND down.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 4
Remove quotes after first field - 198 entries

Remove the quotes around each field except for the first field.

  • Best score: 16
  • Best player score: 24
  • Number of attempts: 1
Vice versa - 6547 entries

Little role switching.

  • Best score: 12
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 4
Table Reshuffle - 325 entries

Fix the column order in this table... also append the new 'username' column.

  • Best score: 22
  • Best player score: 29
  • Number of attempts: 1
Word frequency alignment - 204 entries

You've got to align the second column, but the spacing is inconvenient and there are nasty tabs in the way. If you're a "real Vim ninja," this could be very quick indeed...

  • Best score: 5
  • Best player score: 5
  • Number of attempts: 6
Copy three lines - 2335 entries

If the site is up (by some miracle), make the text under every header identical.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 13
  • Number of attempts: 7
-a-b-c- - 2776 entries

Put hyphens everywhere.

  • Best score: 13
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 2
Mirrored text - 153 entries

backward and forward, and long enough to be challenging

  • Best score: 14
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 7
Align commas - 907 entries

There are 15,000 aligning challenges on vimgolf.com, and they're all exactly the same. I hope this one is a little different.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 15
  • Number of attempts: 2
Nesting SASS - 235 entries

Move a block inside another block and indent it

  • Best score: 9
  • Best player score: 9
  • Number of attempts: 3
Fun With The Diagonal - 86 entries

change the lowercase characters on the main diagonal to uppercase

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 11
  • Number of attempts: 1
Basic renumbering - 4923 entries

Renumbering Basic.

  • Best score: 11
  • Best player score: 14
  • Number of attempts: 13

Contributed Challenges

Preferably without multi-cursor plugin - 355 entries

Originally asked as question on reddit by kpthunder: https://www.reddit.com/r/vim/comments/9fvsro/what_is_the_most_efficient_way_to_go_about/

Refactor typescript arrow function type - 158 entries

Make arrow function type less verbose and easier to read

Add string initializers to an enum - 541 entries

Change Typescript enum so that it has string initializers.

Arijus
Twitter:

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entered into 94 challenges

contributed 3 challenges